The reasons just weren't that different. Some people enjoy the standoffish introverted personality, some prefer the forward extroverted personality, most people enjoy both at one time or another. Or are you saying young women didn't strongly identify with Katniss because she wasn't a blank slate? That her love triangle is not appealing in the same way that Twilight's was? They took the core of what people enjoyed about Twilight (as opposed to just the setting or surface stuff) and put it in a different setting...

And of course, the great part is, that's not what happened at all, they just made a good story with a young female hero and in that process, several commonalities emerged that can be thought of as parts of a good story with a young heroine.

If Marvel learns from those films, they should also learn that it's not about the fight scenes, but about maximizing the tension, both social and physical, and that its okay for a stronger man to save your female characters to emphasize their vulnerability, and that these characters are best resolved when they win the day with clever resourcefulness, as opposed to beating up the bad guy, again emphasizing that they are both strong *and* vulnerable.

Women identified with Katniss for a different reason. Bella had such little development that they could easily place themselves into that role...whereas Katniss was someone who embodied the qualities they look up to or want to have. Twilight is a story about two hunky men fighting over the reader...The Hunger Games is about having the determination, strength and skill to overcome the odds and the reader being inspired by that.

Dude, Katniss has a whole society fighting over her, in addition to being further into her love triangle than Bella was after movie one. Bella used those same qualities to overcome the odds... in her relationship, and clearly it inspired more than a few readers. They appeal to the same crowd in the same numbers for the same reasons. You're talking about surface stuff and why guys don't like Twilight.

I don't know about the USA but around here there are many male fans who enjoy Twilight, and most who went to see The Expendables 2 didn't go watch The Avengers, they liked old school action with guns, not super heroes fighting aliens and an entire hour of character development.

Major diference between Twilight and The Hunger Games is that THG is much better written, as is the main character and plot, Katniss has a society fighting for her? Not really, her acts inspired a revolution, and unlike with Bella, with Katniss actions have consequences. As the following movies will show she won't exactly have a sugar coated happy ending.

And Marvel has mostly caught this demographic already, their movies have a lot of female fans, Robert Downey Junior has captivated people, she has many fan girls due to his personality, So does Captain America for that matter, Thor obviously has Loki and Thor himself idn't that far behind in fangirls.

If anything it's in the comics that they need to get a bigger female audience.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by childeroland

Plenty of male-led action films fail, yet the actors' gender is not blamed. Why should it be different for women? Especially since far more male-led action films are made than female-led action films?

And frankly, you're talking about the relationship stuff, which was a minor subplot in The Hunger Games. Twilight was ALL love story. Iron Man 3 is more of a love story than The Hunger Games...yet you likely don't define that movie by the love story. As Lord mentioned, Katniss is basically leading/inspiring a revolution. She happens to like a guy at the same time.

You are basically suggesting that all female lead characters are defined by their love story...and that is not the path that Marvel should go down. Yes, cast a cute guy to develop into a love interest (because every freaking movie has to). But the point should be to have a strong leading character that is NOT scantily clad and constantly showing off slow motion butt and boob shots.

I completelly agree, which is one of my problems in the Wonder Woman costume thread, one interviewer once asked George R R Martin how he writes women so well, he says that he doesn't think he's writting women, he thinks he's writting characters.

About romance in The Hunger Games i also think it was better handled there than in Twilight, it's simply better devoped and more complex, she liked a boy who she knows since youth and has to act as if she liked another one in order to survive. The Relationship between the fake lovers also starts to grow, as a man i think it is quite well done, and frankly, with so many movies where with all hot female characters after the main male i don't think it's a problem to have more female oriented films.

As i said though, Marvel has succeeded in interesting the female audience, i see as many fan girls invested as men, i just hope Marvel keeps it going this way.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by childeroland

Plenty of male-led action films fail, yet the actors' gender is not blamed. Why should it be different for women? Especially since far more male-led action films are made than female-led action films?

Hmmm... since you picked me to necro I'm not at all convinced that women are strongly interested in Marvel films on their own. If the majority were women, that would support that statement, but 40% could be any mixture of independent interest, tagalongs, compromises and bandwagoning. Bringing the guys often brings the women.

Your reasoning might make sense if the demographic breakdown for Marvel's audience were more like that of the Twilight films. Twilight's demo breakdown is 80/20 females to males, which clearly shows that males are not drawn to the franchise. In contrast, THG's demos are almost the exact reverse of Marvel's, 61/39 female to male, where Marvel draws 60/40 male to female. In both of those instances, the franchises draw most of their audience from one sex but also have appeal for the opposite sex.

Another interesting thing about Twilight is that women over 25 made up the largest portion of its audience, rather than teen/tween girls. Fot THG, the age split was 56% older than 25, 44% younger. Both of those facts are mildly surprising to me since conventional wisdom (and the premise of this thread) is that both franchises cater primarily to the young female crowd. Statistics prove that this assumption is a bit off the mark.

Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Thor and Loki all have female fans, just as Katniss has male ones. Bella and her sparkly vampires only had females in their corner, however, with a few males caught up in the maelstrom.

I don't know about the USA but around here there are many male fans who enjoy Twilight, and most who went to see The Expendables 2 didn't go watch The Avengers, they liked old school action with guns, not super heroes fighting aliens and an entire hour of character development.

Major diference between Twilight and The Hunger Games is that THG is much better written, as is the main character and plot, Katniss has a society fighting for her? Not really, her acts inspired a revolution, and unlike with Bella, with Katniss actions have consequences. As the following movies will show she won't exactly have a sugar coated happy ending.

And Marvel has mostly caught this demographic already, their movies have a lot of female fans, Robert Downey Junior has captivated people, she has many fan girls due to his personality, So does Captain America for that matter, Thor obviously has Loki and Thor himself idn't that far behind in fangirls.

If anything it's in the comics that they need to get a bigger female audience.

I'd agree with the bold. But her inspiring a revolution and people fighting for her aren't actually different things. I don't think the numbers support the idea that they've mostly got this demographic simply because they have got some of this demographic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heretic

And frankly, you're talking about the relationship stuff, which was a minor subplot in The Hunger Games. Twilight was ALL love story. Iron Man 3 is more of a love story than The Hunger Games...yet you likely don't define that movie by the love story. As Lord mentioned, Katniss is basically leading/inspiring a revolution. She happens to like a guy at the same time.

You are basically suggesting that all female lead characters are defined by their love story...and that is not the path that Marvel should go down. Yes, cast a cute guy to develop into a love interest (because every freaking movie has to). But the point should be to have a strong leading character that is NOT scantily clad and constantly showing off slow motion butt and boob shots.

This "minor subplot" in THG caused her to win the Hunger Games in a way that made her a revolutionary, which then sets up for a love triangle that will define the fate of the world, basically. It's very much love-interest driven.

IM3 was similar in that the regard, except with only one love interest. People may not have noticed or felt that the plot was largely driven by his relationship, but it most certainly was, that's why his argument with the bad guy wasn't about the fate of the world, it was about his girl, and why it was so satisfying for his girlfriend to beat the bad guy.

What I am directly observing is that these characters that appeal to this demographic have love triangles that strongly influence the plot. Nothing less, nothing more. Don't minimize it to just having "a" love interest or expand it to defining the character, that's not what was said, so there's no reason to take that away as your understanding of what was said.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xeno000

Your reasoning might make sense if the demographic breakdown for Marvel's audience were more like that of the Twilight films. Twilight's demo breakdown is 80/20 females to males, which clearly shows that males are not drawn to the franchise. In contrast, THG's demos are almost the exact reverse of Marvel's, 61/39 female to male, where Marvel draws 60/40 male to female. In both of those instances, the franchises draw most of their audience from one sex but also have appeal for the opposite sex.

Another interesting thing about Twilight is that women over 25 made up the largest portion of its audience, rather than teen/tween girls. Fot THG, the age split was 56% older than 25, 44% younger. Both of those facts are mildly surprising to me since conventional wisdom (and the premise of this thread) is that both franchises cater primarily to the young female crowd. Statistics prove that this assumption is a bit off the mark.

Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Thor and Loki all have female fans, just as Katniss has male ones. Bella and her sparkly vampires only had females in their corner, however, with a few males caught up in the maelstrom.

Interesting. Thank you for looking that stuff up. (Where do you find those kinds of numbers, btw?) It sounds like the audience is different than what we thought it was, but the principles discussed still seem to apply.

The same reasoning goes for THG and the male audience, yes, there are male fans, but that number could also be any mixture of compromises and bandwagons. To take that this movie didn't turn off dudes like Twilight did and then say that, thus, it has strong appeal with guys, I don't think that's the right way to put it. Because if the movie didn't appeal to women, I don't think as many guys would have gone and seen it. Same with Avengers on the opposite hand.

No one's arguing that these movies don't have fans of the opposite sex... but I don't buy that every man that went to see THG was a Katniss fan, nor was every woman that went to see Avengers a fan of whoever. What I think the goal of the thread is to get those women (whatever age they are) to come out in Twilight/Hunger Games numbers to a Marvel film, while keeping the guys. That would be a blockbuster movie, that would be a female actioner that made a billion dollars. That's the golden bell. Can it be rung... because it's not being rung now, even though there are some female fans of Avengers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heretic

Makes total sense. No one is more likely to want to place themselves in a love triangle with two sexy men who are hopelessly in love with her more than lonely, unhappy or unsatisfied women.

Ouch. That's a little harsh. Can't people just like a good love story? A little desirability wish fulfillment? And why older women gotta be single? Dang.

40% of the audience of the Avengers is a big number, possibly as big as the number of women that went to see the twilight movies, so yeah, i think it has caught the female audience very well. They have made all this success because they appeal to various markets.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by childeroland

Plenty of male-led action films fail, yet the actors' gender is not blamed. Why should it be different for women? Especially since far more male-led action films are made than female-led action films?

Makes total sense. No one is more likely to want to place themselves in a love triangle with two sexy men who are hopelessly in love with her more than lonely, unhappy or unsatisfied women.

Those stories are escapism for women in the same way that superhero comics with their fantasies of exaggerated physical prowess and perfection are escapism for males. Women just tend to like some romance with their tales of heroic action.

40% of the audience of the Avengers is a big number, possibly as big as the number of women that went to see the twilight movies, so yeah, i think it has caught the female audience very well. They have made all this success because they appeal to various markets.

And possibly not?

But you do happen to have a point, based on xeno's percentages, the number of women at Avengers isn't *that* much less than the number of women at Twilight. That said... are they the same women, or does it matter? Women are women, so there?

THG is one film that went after that crowd, and certainly did better than the first Twilight film, so we'll see how it does over four films. If it doubles like Twilight's series did, then THG on its own will be in the 1.5 billion range, and likely with that same 60/40 ratio, and then perhaps we'll have this discussion again about how Avengers' 40% female audience does not capture the female audience like films aimed at that audience do.

Just got back from divergent which I thought was pretty good. Not oscar worthy but I would be happy enough to see a sequel.

It has a tone very similar to marvel films in terms of action and delicate use of comedy. It would be a pretty good model for a captain marvel movie I think if done correctly.

It's funny a lot of films aimed at this demographic focus heavily on cliques. Sorting hats, districts, divergents. Marvel doesn't really have anything like that that I can think of

Not specifically "clique-ish," no; although some of the X-titles qualify.

As far as reaching this particular demographic, franchises like The Runaways and Young Avengers would be the best bets for Marvel Studios. Maybe even Six Pack, although that's a slightly younger than tweenie demo.

I don't think a team film can capture the audience that Katniss/Bella/Pris does unless you turn Runaways into a Sister Grimm movie, or Young Avengers into a Kate Bishop movie. It's not just enough to have a girl around, all the Marvel movies have a girl around. The question is is a relatable young lady the center of our perspective? Do we get to get deep into her life and mind and emotions? Teams are a bit to ensemble-y to do that. I don't think Hunger Games would have been as popular, even in book form, if it had spent just as much time on Haymitch, Peetah, Rue and Gale's perspectives and thoughts as it did Katniss'.

As for cliques, yeah, overcoming social structures is a huge part of female power fantasy. It's not so big in male power fantasy because often there aren't social structures working against them on a personal level. Even in Hunger Games, or Divergent, the guys really don't seem to mind the social mandates of society, however bad they may be.

I'd agree Marvel doesn't have anything quite like that. I think Inhumans lends itself to that relatively easily though, and Crystal makes an ideal sort of rebellious girl against society type protagonist. Shades of Airbender/Avatar with her powers, shades of Disney Princess with her story, though, strictly speaking, if they make a movie, she will be a Disney princess with her oddly adorable pet Lockjaw. Dealing with Inhuman society and it's impositions. Dealing with her evil Uncle Maximus, or perhaps High Evolutionary and his New Men, or save that for a sequel. The more I hear that the more I like it. Hmm...

I don't think a team film can capture the audience that Katniss/Bella/Pris does unless you turn Runaways into a Sister Grimm movie, or Young Avengers into a Kate Bishop movie. It's not just enough to have a girl around, all the Marvel movies have a girl around. The question is is a relatable young lady the center of our perspective? Do we get to get deep into her life and mind and emotions? Teams are a bit to ensemble-y to do that. I don't think Hunger Games would have been as popular, even in book form, if it had spent just as much time on Haymitch, Peetah, Rue and Gale's perspectives and thoughts as it did Katniss'.

As for cliques, yeah, overcoming social structures is a huge part of female power fantasy. It's not so big in male power fantasy because often there aren't social structures working against them on a personal level. Even in Hunger Games, or Divergent, the guys really don't seem to mind the social mandates of society, however bad they may be.

I'd agree Marvel doesn't have anything quite like that. I think Inhumans lends itself to that relatively easily though, and Crystal makes an ideal sort of rebellious girl against society type protagonist. Shades of Airbender/Avatar with her powers, shades of Disney Princess with her story, though, strictly speaking, if they make a movie, she will be a Disney princess with her oddly adorable pet Lockjaw. Dealing with Inhuman society and it's impositions. Dealing with her evil Uncle Maximus, or perhaps High Evolutionary and his New Men, or save that for a sequel. The more I hear that the more I like it. Hmm...

Yeah, I like the sound of a Crystal-focused Inhumans. Thing is, if Marvel made that play strictly to rope in the tweenie/Twilight demographic, though, you should reasonably expect *all* the Inhumans to be pretty much teenagers/young adults, just like in Twilight, Hunger Games, Divergent, etc. It'd feel kinda weird seeing a teenage Karnak and Gorgon, but hey.

And ideally, that would set up Crystal to become an Avenger at a later date, as a nice little nod to comic-book canon.

Yeah, I like the sound of a Crystal-focused Inhumans. Thing is, if Marvel made that play strictly to rope in the tweenie/Twilight demographic, though, you should reasonably expect *all* the Inhumans to be pretty much teenagers/young adults, just like in Twilight, Hunger Games, Divergent, etc. It'd feel kinda weird seeing a teenage Karnak and Gorgon, but hey.

And ideally, that would set up Crystal to become an Avenger at a later date, as a nice little nod to comic-book canon.

Well, if you look at Twilight or Divergent, or especially Hunger Games, there are actually a lot of adults that play vitaly important roles in that stories. The rest of the Royal Family would play similar roles in the story to that. They'd provide Crystal's familial anchors (Pris' parents, Katniss' Mom and Sister, Crystal's royal cousins), a sinister villain (Volturri head, President Snow, Maximus), an antagonistic mother figure (Kate Winslet in Divergent, Effie Trinket, Medusa), a surly mentor (Carlile, Haymitch, Blackbolt), and there are other roles that adults fill in these stories.

I do see your point though, that it then requires at least two teenaged main characters, and the Inhumans don't usually have any of those. There are several that can be culled from the pages of the recent Inhumanity storyline such as Geldhoff, Fiona, Flynn, Kamala Khan, Carmen and Joseph Nobili and of course Thane. I wouldn't be opposed to taking one of the three (Karnak, Gorgon or Triton) to teenager, but not all three. Even so, it would be a new story, essentially.

I'd agree Marvel doesn't have anything quite like that. I think Inhumans lends itself to that relatively easily though, and Crystal makes an ideal sort of rebellious girl against society type protagonist. Shades of Airbender/Avatar with her powers, shades of Disney Princess with her story, though, strictly speaking, if they make a movie, she will be a Disney princess with her oddly adorable pet Lockjaw. Dealing with Inhuman society and it's impositions. Dealing with her evil Uncle Maximus, or perhaps High Evolutionary and his New Men, or save that for a sequel. The more I hear that the more I like it. Hmm...

Pitch: A young princess is on the run from her home as the kingdom of the Inhumans is taken over by her evil uncle Maximus.

Pitch Gist: Twilight meets X-Men!
Real Gist: Lion King meets Frozen

Story:
Crystal is a painfully bored wide eyed princess in the stuffy but pristine kingdom of Attilan, where we learn about this hidden alien genetic experiment and how the Terrigen Mists inform the social order since they 'reveal genetics,' and we meet the Royal Family, Lockjaw included, and love interest #1, teenaged Karnak, the guy who teaches her how to use her powers, Triton and her bodyguard, Gorgon, as well as her older sister and social conflict Medusa, led by the silent and deeply respected Blackbolt. Then Maximus takes over, manages to seemingly kill Blackbolt and decides to remake the Earth, and so releases the Terrigen Mists to awakaken any sleeping Inhumans. So Crystal goes on the run to find Blackbolt, and Maximus commands the full force of Attilan against her.

While she's on the run, she meets a few helpful people, one is a girl her age named Kamala Khan who has just awoken as an Inhuman.. She also meets very hurtful people, such as the Nobili brothers who use their Inhuman abilities to go on a crime spree. She also gets rescued by two Avengers, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. The other Avengers can't be available because they're dealing with destructive Inhuman breakouts all over the world. All the while she is pursued by the Inhuman Royal Family: Karnak, Triton and Gorgon, led by Medusa, who just want to bring her back home safe, whether she likes it or not.

In the end, Crystal, with the help of her friends, and enemies, finds where Blackbolt has been sent, and heads there with Lockjaw, only to find it's the Blue Area of the moon. Here, Blackbolt has established a new kingdom of Attilan for his people, and was fully confident that Crystal would lead them there, and he has. Maximus attempts to incite a civl war, but the King has returned, Crystal is honored and free to travel between Earth and Attilan thanks to Lockjaw.